Where Did She Come From?

By Robert William Saul Harvey

A discussion in a pub between friends, four builders rained-off for the day, causes a stir and sets of a spiral of events leading to...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert William Saul Harvey
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463447062

Robert William Saul Harvey

Robert was born in 1949 in the small Scottish hamlet of Douglas West, Douglas in Lanarkshire, but moved to England when his father, a miner, had to move south for a job.Having left school at the age of fifteen, without any qualifications whatsoever, he started work in a small engineering firm. He soon got fed up coming home covered in dirty grease and having a spotty face so, after six months, decided that engineering was not for him. With nothing to lose, he ran away to sea, so to speak. He joined the Merchant Navy and happily spent three and a half years travelling the world and getting paid for it!Meeting his future wife at the age of nineteen convinced Robert to leave the sea and settle down. There were not many jobs around for a nineteen-year-old and he ended up doing bar/cellar work until deciding to get married at the age of twenty. That was when he joined the Royal Air Force, in which he spent nine years as a Clerk Secretarial, attaining the rank of Corporal before leaving in 1979.After applying for various jobs, Robert finally got one with the National Coal Board in a colliery Stores Department. Ok, this would do him for a while, whilst he looked around for something better. Thirty years later, as a Supply and Contracts Manager, he retired from the Coal Industry at the age of fifty-nine and now has an allotment where he plays at growing vegetables (very nice they are too), and spends his spare time dabbling on his laptop; bliss.Now, with seven books on Smashwords, an eighth under construction, and number nine in the pipeline, who knows where it will stop?Second in the series, Beryl's Pup is now also available.

Book preview

Chapter 1

In the dim, candle-lit living-room of a small, two-bedroom bungalow in Crofter’s Crescent, in the small seaside town of Carmington-on-Sea, every available seat; a three-seat couch, two armchairs, four dining chairs and even the floor, contained bodies.

Live bodies.

Eager, mainly intelligent, alert, expectant bodies. People on a mission. A mission for good, truth and wisdom. A mission to spread the word of God to all, believers and non-believers alike. Well. Some were on a mission, others were there for another reason although it would have to wait until after the service.

Each person, young and old, calm and not-so-calm, sat in silence, their minds focused on something foremost in their mind. Some were focused on the dark silhouette of a person standing before the flickering flames of a pseudo-coal gas fire, set in a brick-surround fireplace, the hearth of which comprised three concrete paving slabs laid side-by-side. Others were focused on the round clock hanging on the wall above the place where a TV normally stood, wishing the big hand would get a move on.

An unpainted large oak beam, cut to length, served as a mantelpiece.

Upon the mantelpiece rested a large polished brass cross mounted on a polished rosewood plinth, illuminated by four large flickering candles, spaced between the cross and each end of the mantelpiece.

On the wall above the fireplace hung a large color print of Jesus with outstretched arms, as if he were offering blessings upon those gathered before him.

Perfumed smoke drifted up from two sticks of incense burning in glass holders sitting on the hearth.

Someone had pushed a medium-sized TV, on a stand with a digital recorder beneath, into one corner of the room making room for people to sit on the floor.

An old wooden writing desk occupied another corner by the window.

The room contained twenty-three people, including the person dressed in a long black smock from neck to ankles, over which a black cloak tied at the neck reached down as far as his knees and black leather sandals on bare feet, straps slackened to accommodate a large painful bunion on each foot—a tall wiry thin man standing with his back to the room. A wide-brimmed black fedora sat on his head. His hands rested on his hips, elbows spread wide causing his cloak to flare out to each side.

The thin man looked more like something from a horror movie than a preacher, about to turn round and spread his cloak wide, to encircle those assembled behind him and perhaps fly around the room bat-like carrying his prey with him.

Think: Dracula!

Wavering light from the candles and the gas fire cast an eerie glow around the thin man’s body, from the audience’s point of view.

Sinister or what?

Low, soothing organ music oozed from two small speakers on a docking point containing an old Creative Zen mp3 player, which had been purchased second-hand in the mid-1990s, sitting on the hearth in front of the gas fire. The soft tones added to the eerie atmosphere hugging the room.

With his head lowered, as if in silent prayer, the thin man lifted his hands, clasped them tight beneath his chin and muttered something unintelligible to the picture above the fireplace, in the manner of a chanting Monk.

When the thin man finished his prayer, he lowered his eyes and smiled at the cross on the mantelpiece before flinging his arms wide.

In a high-pitched voice, he said a clear audible, Amen.

Every person present responded with an Amen of their own, some serious, some not.

The thin man slowly turned round and flicked a glance at the expectant face of each person before raising his arms above his head, palms to the fore.

Praise be, brothers and sisters, he cried, his voice high, quivering, excited, on the verge of orgasm. Welcome to this humble abode, God’s house.

Pride welled in the thin man’s breast as he cast a benevolent smile around the candle-lit room before lowering his arms and folding them across his chest. He bowed his head and made a solemn face.

His audience made subdued.

Praise be, the thin man repeated. Not as loud this time.

Praise be, those gathered responded as one voice.

The thin man continued, We are in God’s house, in praise of God, to whom we pledge our allegiance for the whole of our lives.

The thin man smiled and raised his head. He was under no illusion. At least fourteen of these people were there for other than God’s forgiveness.

Again, he cast a benevolent smile at each pair of eyes reflecting the flickering light of the candles behind him. Made there eyes appear as if a fire burned within, a fire of desire, which was true in some cases.

Just what he wanted—desire. The unbounded desire of everyone there present. A desire to follow, like sheep.

Baa!

Welcome, he drawled. Welcome. My friends. My brethren.

Another smile creased his face.

Today, I am proud, nay, honored, to accept the trust you have placed upon myself for the first independent assembly of The Church of The Unified Brotherhood of Eden’s Children. I also humbly accept your nomination for Head of our small Brotherhood, Sisters included, he added, with yet another non-benevolent smile, the smile of a spider addressing its audience of flies.

By calling his dwelling a church only in private company, he could get round the local Council Planning Laws. One could not describe a gathering of friends discussing religion as other than that, a group of friends meeting for a chinwag.

If anyone outside of this ‘congregation’ wanted to call his humble bungalow a church, well, that was up to them. Who was he to criticize them? Anyway, the onus was on the local Town Council to prove otherwise and none of his flock would admit to attending religious services there.

True, we are few at the moment, he continued. Nevertheless, I am sure as sure can be, our numbers will grow once we go forth and spread God’s word among the populace of this small, docile, seaside town.

For ‘docile,’ read, ‘easy prey’.

Eager heads nodded in unison as a murmur of agreement greeted his statement.

Even though the established churches of this country have renounced us, have cast us out, call us misguided and overly zealous in our endeavors, God has not and will not cast us aside.

The thin man glanced around as he paused for effect.

‘This is too easy,’ he thought. ‘Piece of piss.’

He remembered the way the new vicar of St Mary’s, the local Church of England had forbade the group to attend any more of his services, considering their views to be almost Satanic and had thrown them out in the middle of a service. This vicar did not hold with their evangelical approach to religion and their annoying exaltations of, Hallelujah and Praise be, interrupting proceedings.

The thin man waited until he considered his flock to be ready.

Nay! he cried, raising his voice. Never! For He has given us a sign, this very day. He again paused and glanced at each face. A new son, born to our very own Virgin Mary, young Jennifer, my daughter, who remains in hospital with her new baby. At the tender age of fourteen, yes, fourteen, she is fortunate to have been visited by a celestial being and impregnated with the new Son of God!

Hallelujah! cried those assembled before him. Praise be to God! Yeah.!

‘Shit. I’m good at this,’ thought the thin man, with smug satisfaction. ‘These bloody idiots will believe anything I tell them!’

Just then, it did not occur to him how many of them could not give a shit about Jennifer’s baby, all they wanted was for him to get the hell on with it, so they could complete their business with the thin man and get the hell out of there.

The thin man, Richard Phillips, secreted the fact that the so-called ‘celestial being’ who had bedded his young daughter, after first spiking her drink with enough Rohypnol to put an elephant to sleep, (perhaps a slight exaggeration), during an evening barbecue at a friend’s house and rendering her delusional and compliant, had been no other than his own, idiotic nineteen-year-old stepson, Gareth.

A lanky six-footer, with the intelligence of a tin of baked beans, (Richard’s opinion), Gareth had made a contemptuous sneer when first told he had become a father. Thought it was, um, funny. He had puffed out his chest, full of false pride and bragged about his virility.

Richard had no option but to punch the smug twat square on the nose. Which is the reason Gareth’s nose now leans slightly to his left and has a pronounced dent on its bridge.

Okay.

So.

Gareth and Jennifer were stepbrother and stepsister. However, that did not alter the fact; the boy’s selfish act had been wrong, in more ways than one.

A few choice words from Richard, plus the broken nose, had sent the boy into a deep sulk—a right monk-on, as some would call it—which had lasted for the length of the girl’s pregnancy and still continued to this day. Not that Richard gave a shit. Suited him fine if the idiot never spoke to him again.

It had taken Richard most of the night to come up with the idea of claiming the girl had been visited by this fictitious celestial being, but now he had started to plant the idea into his dumb followers, he intended to build on this for all it was worth.

The boy, Gareth, glared at his stepfather from the darkest corner of the room, where he sat on one of the uncomfortable, unpadded dining chairs, with his legs crossed and both hands clasped on his knee. Nowadays, he remained indoors for the most part, at Richard’s insistence, acting as resident cleaner-cum-cook, launderer and dishwasher. A slave, no less. A fitting punishment for his wrongdoing. His stepfather had threatened to report him to the police if he should so much as hint about his involvement with Jennifer.

Now the girl had given birth, Gareth, determined to leave the town at the earliest opportunity, wanted nothing further to do with the child. He promised never to reveal he was the father of Jennifer’s baby, for obvious reasons. With Richard’s blessing, he had his case packed ready. Two thousand pounds in his bank account plus a one-way train ticket to London, ready to leave early the following morning.

A job as a security guard, at a large shopping center south of the river, awaited Gareth. Richard had arranged the position through one of his many contacts in the shadier echelons of society.

The fact he would be living in sub-standard accommodation to start with did not bother Gareth. Anything to get away from this false religion and not have to pay maintenance for an ankle-biter he had never wanted, suited him just fine.

‘And good riddance,’ thought Gareth, hurling flaming arrows of hate at the man who had driven his mother to kill herself on the local railway line, only a year beforehand, because of his stupid, continuous Biblical rantings. ‘The sooner I’m away from this place, the better I’ll like it. One day, I’ll come back and get my revenge. And I’ll drop you in it, you old goat. I’ll let the police know what you’re really up to. But that can wait until I’m properly settled, somewhere else, where you can’t reach me. Then you’ll know about it. I promise you that.’

Richard had explained to Gareth, in great detail and in no uncertain terms, how, should he try to disprove the ‘celestial being’ story, or show his face in the area again, he would inform the police of the truth and Gareth would get no help from either him, or the ‘Church’.

Because Jennifer had been drugged, she did not know which low-life scumbag had taken advantage of her. Her father had offered to support her and her baby, promising her a worry-free future and she was more than happy to go along with his suggestion. She had sworn to all and sundry, how, one storm-ravaged February night, an apparition had visited and seduced by her, whilst she slept. In fact, this deception rather appealed to her.

In the beginning, Richard’s idea had been; what these marvelous people did not know would not hurt them and with the help of this child, they would follow Richard and help him in his quest for power. Power and money.

Well, the power was incidental. He was more interested in the money.

Having previously made and lost a fortune in banking, through every fault of his own and the reason his first wife had divorced him, Richard had decided the easiest way to make money would be to get into religion. After watching a TV program about an evangelist preacher who raked in millions by running his own on-line church, and being a devout Christian himself, knew where his new calling would be. Now he had got it running, so to speak, he had discovered another, more lucrative sideline, which had presented itself via a vaguely religious leather-clad biker and his gang. Roger had made quick to take advantage of this recent venture. His little ‘church’ provided the perfect cover and his congregation had more than doubled overnight.

Once he had accrued as much money as possible from this town, and the thousands of visitors who descended upon it each year, he intended to retire to some far-flung backwoods in the depths of Southern Ireland where no one could find him. A log cabin on the shores of an enormous lake, surrounded by forest, made for an appealing daydream.

A life of luxury beckoned, and he aimed to get there as quickly as possible. A year, two at the most, ought to do it.

‘Because, I have the gift of the gab, an easy persuasive nature, even though I’ve never kissed the Blarney Stone, I will get there, with the help of my biker friends. God bless my Irish grandmother and those who like to ride greasy, noisy motorcycles.’

Nice.

The money had soon started to pour in, slowly at first, some via donations to his church, intended for distribution to a host of non-existent charities, in answer to his many sermons, preached throughout the town and nearby villages, from the back of his old, battered red Toyota pickup truck, with the rest coming from his other, more lucrative sideline.

Cool.

Which just went to show how stupid some people could be. Some silly buggers wanted to follow him.

Him!

Okay. Let them. Why should he try to deter the mad fools, especially when some were willing to donate to his ‘cause’ and go out into the surrounding villages and persuade others to dig deep?

Yep.

A good scam if you can do it.

Uh-huh.

Cast enough bait and some idiots were bound to bite. The world is full of gullible people. As far as Richard was concerned, the more of these he could find, the better it would be for him.

The fact Richard already fervently believed in the teachings of the Holy Bible proved invaluable in his quest, helped him in his efforts to convince others to follow him and contribute towards his future retirement. With the biker’s help, he had recruited four helpers to act as disciples, as he called them.

Richard’s English father had died in an alcoholic daze when Richard was only three years old and his mother had run off with another woman, would you believe, leaving him in the care of his doting, if strict, Grandmother. She had drilled God into him in his formative years. Roman Catholic schooling and church every Sunday. No wonder he was so good at this religion lark. Now, however, he considered himself to be multi-denominational.

Any church in a storm!

Except,

All that is history and, as Richard always says, history does not exist any more. The only thing that matters is, now.

And,

Now, he knows the truth! People are so gullible, which helped to make his job all the easier.

Richard made a point of ignoring Gareth’s scowling face. Tomorrow, he would rid himself of the pathetic little worm forever.

He smiled serenely at the sea of trusting and not-so-trusting faces before him, like a shark surveying a shoal of fishes before it dives in to devour them. Nodding as he put his hands together, tips of his index fingers touching the tip of his nose, he bade his congregation to bow their heads and join him in prayer.

At his prompt, everyone recited, Our Father, which art in Heaven…

Chapter 2

On a cold, miserable October afternoon, with rain pissing down outside and a noisy wind whistling in the chimney, four young men in their mid to late twenties, dressed in old, dirty work-clothes, huddled around a small circular table to one side of the fireplace in the Marketplace Public House, to one side of the market square of the seaside town of Carmington-on-Sea.

A welcoming log fire crackled in the ancient grate, spread a welcome warmth around the room.

Two adult dogs, Labradors, one black male, the other a chocolate brown female, belonging to different owners, sprawled side by side on the floor in front of the fire, oblivious to the inaudible hum of conversation around them.

The four youthful men, well-oiled after imbibing a few pints of one of the local real ales, sat round a table full of empty and part-full glasses. They cracked the odd crude joke among themselves. Political correctness and sexual courtesy did not belong in their world. Each made more than a few derogatory observations on the state of the country’s rulers and other non-important rubbish.

The reason these men had sought refuge in the pub at such an early hour? Rain had stopped work on the building site where the four friends toiled, causing them to seek this ancient sanctuary in their favorite local bar.

This friendship, bound not only through working together as a team but also by its roots, which went way back to the prior days of junior school, where they had first met. They had stayed together as a team throughout their teens, working for the same building company, gaining the skills to make them proficient in their jobs. Such bonds were tight, lifelong and unbreakable. The guys now worked for themselves as a small, self-contained construction gang, their current project being one of renovating a dilapidated bungalow requiring more rebuilding than actual renovation and the conversion of a pub into a block of apartments, a project that would give each of them a decent profit when completed.

A few others, rained-off builders, market stallholders and shoppers crowded into the small barroom, all pissed-off with the weather, each table fully occupied, with standing-room only at the short oak-lined bar.

The smell of damp clothes and even damper dogs permeated the stale warm air amid the fug of wood smoke, tobacco smoke and beer fumes.

Being a typical English pub, the exposed oak beams displayed a myriad of beer mats from all around the world, interspersed with about fifty different horse-brasses, each in need of a good polish to get rid of a thick layer of nicotine. Hundreds of coins of all denominations, again from all around the world, shoved into any crack, nook, or cranny the various donors could find in the ancient timber. Pictures and photographs of coal mines and miners, equipment and spoil tips adorned the walls. Many of said photographs were from the early 1900s depicting miners long since dead and forgotten and mines long since closed.

Some of the old wood floorboards had warped over the years by various liquids carelessly spilled whilst being carried to any of the eight round tables, or held in hands as groups huddled, jostled and talked. Daily mopping with soapy water had also aided the warping process.

A sign above the bar read, No, you are NOT drunk—yet, although the floor is half-soaked!

Four shelves running the length of the wall behind the bar, displayed miniature bottles of liquors and spirits various patrons and visitors had provided over the years.

Many small bottles looked in dire need of cleaning, being thick with dust and grime accumulated over time.

Hanging from cup-hooks fixed to the edge of the top shelf, half-a-dozen old pewter tankards, probably belonged to long-dead customers.

All shelves sported a thick layer of dust, except for the lowest shelf currently being used as an ‘office’. It contained an ancient manually operated till and various bundles of paper, books and boxes of confectionery, plus a dozen or so upturned pint glasses, patrons, for the use of.

The four men huddled over their drinks as the current conversation drifted away from the normal inane jokes and comments about various people in the news and politicians in particular to the matter of the Universe and whether God really existed, both always contentious subjects at the best of times.

So… said the ginger-haired and heavily freckled six-feet-four-inch tall beanpole, Barry Cunningham, known to his friends as Baz. Nobody dared to call Baz ‘Ginger’, or any variation thereof, for fear of his karate-fueled wrath. … if God really does exist, who, or what, made Him, Her, or It, in the first place? It couldn’t have just popped up from nowhere, could He, She or It? I mean, what existed here, he waved a hand in a circular motion above his head, before all of this?

The other three guys assumed he meant his wave to encompass the entire Universe, not just the room in which they sat.

Nothing? he continued, giving the others no time to answer. A big void? Ugh? Well. If that’s so, how did this big void come into being in the first place and what was here before this void? Who or what created it? And more to the point, what’s beyond the boundaries of this vast area of nothingness? Must have boundaries, don’t you think? Can’t just be nothing forever, can it? Eh? Tell me that. Go on. Anyone?

He glanced from one to the other, urging them to respond.

One of the men, Gerald Manning, wrongly diagnosed in his childhood as having so-called ‘Learning Difficulties’, had been born with a very mild form of cerebral palsy, mainly affecting his left arm and left leg although his right side was strong and steady.

The older he got, the more he learned to deal with his disability, so much so, anyone who did not know him would have noticed nothing untoward.

No Einstein, Gerald was clever in his own way, strong as an ox, apart from his slightly weaker left side, and very good with his right hand.

What he lacked in dexterity he made up for with his ability to lay bricks and cut timber. Many less physical things, requiring the integral dexterity of two hands, were beyond his ability. Those such as making fiddly electrical connections, or tying shoelaces—one reason he wore slip-on footwear, including a pair of Rigger work-boots.

Few things needed explaining to him in too great a detail, never re-explained, because there was nothing wrong with his memory. He remembered many things forever, though only if they were, in his opinion, worth remembering. He confined anything not worth remembering to the giant trash bin of ‘not interested’. His three friends did not mind helping him out with the more intricate physical aspects of his work on those few occasions when he had no choice other than to ask for help. Unless he asked, no one offered, knowing he would refuse, owing to his stubborn sense of independence.

Being slow to anger and quick to forgive, made him an agreeable friend to have.

Gerald blinked and shook his head as he struggled to think of an answer to Baz’s questions. This sort of thing interested Gerald more than most other topics because the existence of God contradicted many ideas put forward by scientists and those of his own mother and father, neither of whom had ever believed in other than the wonders of Mother Nature.

Makes my mind boggle, muttered Elmer Fosdyke, the most knowledgeable member of the quartet, sitting to Baz’s left, Gerald’s right, and opposite Dan, who was Baz’s elder brother, the fourth member of the group. To me, there must have been some kind of void here to start with and without the existence of God, there can be no explanation where the thing came from, or formed. He must have created it, I assume, so He had somewhere to put the Universe. Although, to be truthful, it’s all beyond me. Can’t even think about how big the thing is, or what might be on the outside. That’s if there is actually an outside. Makes my brain hurt whenever I think about it. Even thinking about the alternative, what scientists call the Big Bang, sends me dizzy! Nothing. Then, boom! And suddenly, everything happens! He made a heavy sigh before adding, If the Big Bang really happened, I’m convinced it was God who made it happen.

Gerald stared at Baz, as if he were waiting for him to explain further.

Baz, Bricklayer, Scaffold Erector, Plumber and Electrician, did not disappoint.

So, what about this Enormous Bang thing then, eh? Baz glanced from one to the other. Getting no response, other than raised eyebrows and shaking heads, he continued, What, or who, if not God, caused it? Not to mention, who or what created this so-called Singularity thing the scientists keep wittering on about, the thing from which the entire damn universe is supposed to have developed? If God didn’t create that, where the shit did it come from? Must have come from somewhere. Didn’t just happen to be sitting there, in the middle of nothing, nowhere, waiting to blow its top? Huh?

Dan Cunningham, their gang boss, grinned, an evil glint in his eye. He saw an opportunity to stir things up here and get the conversation flowing.

Bricklayer-cum-Carpenter, Cement Mixer and all-round General Dogsbody, and the oldest member of the group at twenty-eight, Dan stood at six-feet-one-inch tall and more than a little overweight with a huge beer-gut and happy with it.

Suppose God just had a spare singularity in his pocket, mate, he said. Chucked it into this here little void and set it off, just to see what would happen? Like an experiment, say?

It’s enough to drive you bloody nuts, moaned Baz. Makes my brain hurt every time I think of it, it does.

Elmer, Plasterer, Concrete Mixer/Layer, Scaffold Erector, good with a Broom and Shovel, and made an excellent cup of tea, grinned at Gerald’s perplexed expression and shucked his head in Dan’s direction.

According to some brainy people, there was nothing anywhere before the Big Bang, said Dan, his voice full of authority, as if he knew what he was talking about. Even time itself did not exist.

Yes it did, interjected Gerald, roused from his passive position.

Dan made an indulgent smile.

No, it did not. How could it, when there was just—nothing, anywhere?

Elmer jumped in, deciding to take Gerald’s side in the matter. Yes, it did, pal! Must have done, mate. Didn’t just start up on its own, did it?

Baz, always one to back Dan in an argument, rounded on Elmer. "Don’t be silly, man. It did not. How could time exist before anything else? Makes